President Obama included a signing statement saying that he totally promises to not arrest and indefinitely detain anybody unless they really, really deserve it. But can we be sure that a future Michele Bachmann administration will be bound by that? I’m dubious. In all likelihood she’ll start arresting people because they’re from New Mexico. Bastards shoulda moved to an American-sounding state, by God.

Why NYPD cops get hazard pay for working New Year's Eve.

Meanwhile, my buddy Mitt Romney stated proudly that he’d veto “The Dream Act” if elected. Then he’d kick the little foreign kids’ puppies and steal their lunch money. This got a lot of applause in Iowa, as you might expect. Glad to have those forward-thinking people determining who gets to run for president of this country.

Mind you, things aren’t all bad. Last night I got to see feminist role model Jenny McCarthy stick her tongue down the throat of a random New York policeman to celebrate the New Year. And that probably doesn’t happen more than 60 or 70 times a year. Stay classy, Jenny!

Also, our chickens have finally begun laying, and I had my first fresh home-grown eggs for breakfast this morning. The yolks are bright orange and they’re amazingly tasty. The chickens haughtily eschew the laying boxes I so carefully crafted a year ago, instead finding more innovative places to deposit their burdens — like under the snow thrower or in the middle of the patio in the back yard — where they’ll be safe. As my wife says, “No wonder they’re food products.”

This can't end well.

Did I mention that I won my first ever fantasy football league this year? It was amazing. My wife claims all of the credit, saying that she told me to take Drew Brees. I counter that she picked him merely because he’s dreamy, and it was me who brilliantly drafted Rob Gronkowski, the amazing New England Patriots’ tight end — though to be honest, I  just liked his name.

People who know what they’re doing really hate it when people like me win these things. That cheers me up immensely.

Not that any of it matters much at this point. Apparently our league commissioner has run off to Iceland with all of the prize money. He claims he’s on vacation but the bastard’s probably spending it all buying up bankrupt Icelandic investment banks.

So life goes on, the good and bad. 2012 promises to be a year much like any other, unless the Mayans are correct, in which case we’re all dead. And if so at least we won’t have to go through another goddamned election cycle, so it might well be worth it.

Happy New Year, everybody! Here’s hoping yours is healthy and prosperous and full of tasty eggs found in surprising places!

Olivia Munn as a totally gratuitous naughty librarian.

10. “The Six Billion People You Won’t Meet in Heaven” by Christopher Hitchens

9. “Google for Homophobes” by Rick Santorum

8. “The Girl with the Gingrich Tattoo” by Stieg Larsson

7. “The Audacity of Abject Surrender” by Barack Obama

6. “Harry Potter and the Quiddich Locker-Room Showers” by JK Rowling and Jerry Sandusky

5. “Fannie and Freddie and Me: A Love Story” by Newt Gingrich

4. “I Am Curious (Orange)” by John Boehner

3. “Kim Jong Il – The Chippendale Years” by Kitty Kelly

2. “Stanley the Christmas Jew” by Pat Robertson

1. “Gingrich? Really? What the Fuck Do I Have to Do, Blow Each of You Individually?” A Political Diary by Mitt Romney

So that’s it. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

•  I hear that the GOP is going to let lovable billionaire pinhead Donald Trump moderate an upcoming presidential debate. This is clearly a sign of the End Times, and I’m surprised noted prognosticator John Hodgman neglected to mention it in his fine work describing the impending Ragnarok, “That is All.”

•  As I age, I look forward to consuming more than my fair share of the world’s dwindling resources. Sorry, future generations, but there it is.

•  If they want to get a reality TV show host to moderate a GOP presidential debate, they should ask Heidi Klum. She’s smarter than Donald Trump and she has much better hair. “In Republican politics, one week you’re in; the next – you’re out…” Ooo.

Brian Williams never looked this good.

•  In the game “Skyrim,” I kill animals and people and harvest their souls to power my weapons. This creeps me the hell out, but I do it anyway. Such is the power of computer gaming to turn you evil.

•  There’s something surreal about Ray Lewis, arguably the manliest dude in all of professional sports, being laid low by a toe injury. I’m sure they’re covering something up. He was probably attacked by a velociraptor. Or Sauron. I bet he kicked their asses.

• If Herman Cain was forced to leave the GOP presidential race because of his sexual peccadilloes, Newt Gingrich should be booted out of this species entirely. What gives?

• Every time an NFL football announcer says, “…they can’t let the quarterback break contain” rather than “…break containment,” I go out and strangle a baby duck. So they should stop.

•  Despite her liberal attitude on many things, my wife doesn’t like it when I go to the Twilight movies to pick up chicks.

I forget what pithy political statement I was going to make with this second photo of Heidi Klum, so I'll just say "Hotcha" and move on.

•  Donald Trump? Really? Why not somebody with gravitas? Elmo maybe.

•  …Say… that gives me an idea: “Tickle Me, Gingrich!”

•  More American parents than ever are refusing to get their children vaccinated. (Because they’re stupid.)

•  When the kids die of easily-preventable disease, I bet their parents try to sue somebody. If they do, I vote we send Ray Lewis after them. Or I could take their souls. I’m fine either way.

Ho, ho, ho!

The Kardashians and their creepy mom who insists upon pretending to be one of the girls.

“No More Kardashians” Petition

A woman in Denver, Colorado, has used a petition generation web* site to create a petition asking E! Online to remove “Keeping Up with the Kardashians” from its lineup. The petition states,

“Keeping up with the Kardashians is just not viewing that we the public, would like to see from your network. Enough is enough.”

Now I think we can all agree that this program is unmitigated crap. The premise is: “Rich, beautiful people can be just as dysfunctional and petty and stupid and greedy and awful as the rest of us, and ain’t that fun to watch?**” Apparently lots of people think so, as the show is quite popular.

I personally accidentally saw 42 seconds of it a month ago and I still wake up screaming. So I’m not really opposed to the petitioner’s objective. It is a totally a horrible show. But it’s not like there aren’t 30,000 other less objectionable (though still mostly horrible) shows on at the same time on other channels you can watch instead of it. Just turn the channel, why don’t you? Still, this petition has gotten over 100,000 signatures in just a couple of days, which shows some agreement among the general public.

However, the part that confuses me is why the author thinks that if it does drop the Kardashians, E! Online won’t just put something worse on in its place. E! Online’s lineup currently includes such inspiring entries as “Dirty Soap,” “Dr. 90210,” “Fashion Police,” “The Girls Next Store,” “Kendra,” “True Hollywood Story,” and something called “Ice Loves Coco,” which proves that hardcore ex-rap stars can be just as banal and dysfunctional and petty and silly as the rest of us, and they like wives with big butts.

So good luck with that petition, Concerned Citizen Lady. If you succeed E! Online will probably replace it with “At Home with the Mansons” or something.

At home with Ice and Coco T. And yes -- short of death -- there is no way to remove this image from your brain.

“No More Kardashians” Petition Author Gets Death Threats

No. Really. According to a story by CBS Denver.com, the woman who put together the “No More Kardashians” petition has been getting death threats, serious enough to cause her to hire security guards.

Somebody is so enraged that this woman is trying to get the Kardashians off of TV that they’re threatening her life?

I’m theoretically speechless.

The E! Online show "Kendra" sensitively explores the triumphs and tragedies of new mom Kendra Wilkinson

An “Occupy San Diego” Protester Asked the Crowd to Observe a Moment of Silence for the White House – and for the Dude who Recently Shot at It.

This is a fact. The guy asked the crowd for a moment of silence for this nutjob. The crowd was sorta bemusedly silent for a few seconds, then marched off somewhere chanting. Now the conservative blogosphere are wetting their pants at this, claiming that it’s proof that the OWS crowd is a bunch of murderous anarchists and complaining that the media isn’t all over this story like they’d be if it was a Tea Party nut rather than an Occupy nut.

Which is true.

The media is a Liberal Tool. Suck it, Tea Party!

Anyway, to be fair, the doofus later “explained” his idiotic statement, saying,

“Whoever shot at the White House is basically a terrorist, and I was holding a moment of silence for the White House and President Obama and everyone in the White House. I wasn’t holding a moment of silence for the terrorist in any way. We’re a peaceful movement, and we don’t support people shooting at the White House.”

Listening to the original text it’s clear that’s a barefaced lie. The guy totally did want a moment of silence for the shooter, but at least he’s smart enough to regret his idiocy now. Be that as it may, I’m sure he’s no longer invited to the secret Occupy meetings where the organizers get their instructions from Moscow.

Ann Coulter Explains on FOX that the Conservatives’ Blacks are Better than the Liberals’ Blacks

Nuff said. Ann has of course never regretted or clarified her statements. It’s not her way.

Mario Batali Hurts Bankers’ Feelings by Comparing them to Stalin and Hitler

On November 8, while sitting on a TIME magazine event to propose candidates for the magazine’s “Person of the Year,” Batali said,

“I would have to say that who has had the largest effect on the whole planet without us really paying attention is the entire banking industry, and their disregard for the people that they’re supposed to be working for. The way the bankers have toppled the way money is distributed — and taken most of it into their own hands — is as good as Stalin or Hitler and the evil guys.”

Since that time Batali has apologized, issuing a “just kidding” notice and explicitly stating that he doesn’t think bankers are as bad as Stalin and Hitler.*** Sadly, the bankers remain pissed, and some of them are boycotting his restaurants. Which is just as well. From what I hear the cheap bastards never tip and they always steal the steak knives.

So that’s it for today from the frontiers of free speech in America! Feel free to express your opinions about this column in boxes below. I’ll reply or send ‘em off to Homeland Security as appropriate!

*Did you know that there was a petition generation web site? Wow. What kind of trouble can we get into with that? Send me your ideas immediately.

**Also, the Kardashians have big butts and bosoms and the best plastic surgery money can buy, and they’re allegedly promiscuous bimbos. This secures a healthy male audience.

***He doesn’t say anything about bankers being like Mussolini and Tojo, however, which is probably a better fit.

“Why would anybody want to look at her naked?” my wife asked. This puzzled me.

“Because she’s got boobs,” I explained, trying to understand the question.

“But she’s a skanky ‘ho!” my wife responded. I didn’t see the relevance of her statement.

“Sure,” I replied, “she’s a ‘skanky ‘ho’ with boobs. So?”

She shook her head. “What’s wrong with you? The woman’s a drunken tramp!”

We were at an impasse.

After much discussion, the issue became clear. The point of confusion centered on these things called “standards.” My wife has ‘em; I don’t.

To my wife, no matter how physically attractive and naked, a man had to meet a certain level of let’s call it “non-skankiness” to be interesting. Despite (once) having a fairly attractive outer shell, naked Charlie Sheen could never be an object of lust since he’s a self-destructive, addlepated whore-mongering tool. Nor could a pantsless Peyton Manning because, as a member of the Indianapolis Colts, he is steeped in evil.

Whereas I’m a guy, which means I’m attracted to virtually any naked woman, no matter what her race, color, political affiliation, police record, or indeed personal skankiness — assuming she achieves a minimal level of physical comeliness. And an undressed Lindsay Lohan certainly meets those criteria. So do the Bush daughters, for that matter. And Leni Riefenstahl.* And even that horse-faced mean-spirited trull Ann Coulter (a little†), if she were naked.

My wife then declared me insane and offered to get me a cup of warm milk and a comfortable strait-jacket, saying it was clear to her that I shouldn’t be let out of the house ever again, for my own safety as much as for the well-being of the world in general.

I responded in kind, and after much banter and loving repartee we left the issue unsettled, each convinced the other was crazy.

Which is exactly how it should be in a happy marriage, don’t you think?

————————————————————-

*Just kidding! Most guys I know draw the line at Nazi chicks.**

**Except for the “Werewolf Women of the SS” who are totally hawt.

†This is nothing I’m proud of. In my defense I still hate Coulter’s guts and hope she gets eaten by a gang of rabid honey-badgers on the set of “The O’Reilly Factor.” Is it so bad to want her to be naked when it happens?

My wife is far too good for me. Just sayin.

Because of alleged dangerous interactions* between alcohol and the antibiotics I’m taking, I am also forbidden to drink. This forces me to view the world around me with dangerous sobriety. That is no way to face the news of the day.

Herman Cain’s Rude Gesture Problem

As you’ve no doubt heard by now, the fine news organization Pro Publica has pooped out a story alleging “inappropriate behavior” by Herman Cain during the 1990s, when he was head of the National Restaurant Association. Allegedly, two (or more) women complained of “sexually suggestive behavior by Cain that made them angry and uncomfortable,” and they “accepted financial payouts to leave the association.”

In response, Herman Cain waffled and gabbled for a couple of days, first denying all knowledge, then denying selective knowledge, then lying, and then blaming the Liberal Elite Media for muck-raking. As it turns out, the info was dug up and leaked by either a Rick Perry minion or a Mitt Romney servitor, nobody knows for certain.

Now everybody in the Republican Party is throwing mud at everybody else and the media and punditry are having a big, satisfying scandalgasm. Meanwhile, Barack Obama has been spotted doing the Snoopy Dance in the Lincoln Bedroom.

I find this all extremely irritating. Long before this junk came to light, I disliked Herman Cain for his crappy ideas. These included a bogus tax scheme designed to cut taxes to the wealthy, raise taxes on the poor and generally pauperize the country, as well as a hilarious plan to put up a big electrified Mexican-zapping fence on the country’s southern border, patrolled no doubt by “sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads.”

"And we'll bury families of radioactive weasels UNDER the fence to keep the Mexicans from digging tunnels!"

Cain also famously said that the poor should blame themselves for not being rich (in a country with over 9% unemployment, mind you), and recently stated his fear that China was “developing nuclear capability” (which they’ve had since the ‘60s).

So where was the “lame-stream media” when he was babbling this junk? Nowhere. They were too busy reporting on the horse race to point out that he was a dangerous crank — if not a total lunatic. But one lewd gesture, one inappropriate “black walnut” comment twenty years ago and they’re all over him like piranhas on Michele Bachmann with a nosebleed.

Mind you, I don’t like sexual harassment any better than the next dude, but this guy is so grossly incompetent that he should have been laughed out of the presidential race months ago, long before this ancient scandal came to light.

Sheesh.

Ann Coulter Stands up for the Black Man

Did you watch the Daily Show on November 2, 2011? It contained one of the funniest bits of television I’ve ever seen, in which Donald Trump accuses Jon Stewart of racism and Ann Coulter boasts that the Conservatives’ blacks are better and blacker than the Liberals’ blacks. It’s almost impossible to describe how idiotically racist Mr. Trump and Ms. Coulter sound. It’s positively brilliant. It’s a long clip, but you should seriously check it out.

There is incontrovertible evidence that this woman is a total jerkwad. Why does she keep appearing on TV?

You have to wonder why FOX lets either of these clowns appear on their network. I suspect that Rupert Murdoch is suffering from advanced syphilis, but I have no facts to back that up. It just feels right, you know?

————————————————————————–

*Vomiting, disorientation, diarrhea, and death.  Like going to a Justin Beiber concert.

This is useful, because some of my office-mates’ tastes are extremely odd, and I have been subjected to a variety of terrible music, including “Wynona’s Big Brown Beaver,” by Primus, “Amaranth,” by the Finnish orchestral rock band Nightwish (seriously), and of course any song by that crazy androgynous Japanese dude Gackt. I tend to subject them to geezer music by Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, and newer wussy music by mainstream artists like Feist.

Because we’re massive jerks, about half the time we program songs simply to annoy the other listeners. This can lead to extended hours of auditory agony. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if a certain co-worker is playing Tex Williams’ “Don’t Telephone, Don’t Telegraph, Tell a Woman” because he really likes it or because he wants to tick off our female co-worker, but in the end, does it really matter? In revenge she’ll play the Pokémon theme song and my ears bleed. When it’s my turn I call upon my vast knowledge of crappy 70s music to come up with songs like “A Cowboy’s Work is Never Done” by Sonny and Cher. Everybody loses.

While mostly this is foolish nonsense designed to pass the time and kill brain cells, I have been introduced to a number of cool singers/bands I never would have otherwise discovered. At the top of this list is neo folk genius Jonathan Coulton, who writes and sings brilliant music like “Code Monkey,” “Re: Your Brains,” and his great cover of the “Portal” song “Still Alive“. The dude’s like a god to me.

I’ve also learned about Lonely Island, the comedic group who have given the world classics like “I Just Had Sex,” “I’m On A Boat,” and many other wonderful songs that are definitely NSFW (not suitable for work) or children. Or anybody with any sense, for that matter.

If you haven’t tried “Turntable.fm,” check it out. How else do you learn about new music these days? Hell, you probably don’t use those brain cells anyway.

To summarize the long and tortured path which has led me to this point: A year ago I got this tumor in my belly-fat (a substance with which I am amply blessed). The tumor was removed, leaving behind a cavity in said belly-fat. Instead of healing closed, this cavity filled up with some kind of noxious fluid, becoming a hard, eggplant-shaped pain in my side.

This “juice-box full of goo” as I fondly like to think of it obstructs my ability to sleep on my side, makes it difficult to tie my right shoelace, and starts to ache after a few hours of sitting at a desk and typing like a madman, which is my wont. My surgeon thought that it would eventually heal up, but it’s been a year and it’s still there, so I’ll be suing her later.

Noms!

Tomorrow I go JHU’s Kimmel medical center and get naked, then some dude I’ve never met will drug me up and stick a drain into my “seroma” (Latin for “juice-box full of goo”) and suck the liquid out. The drain will stay in my belly until the thing heals up, dripping effluvia into some kind of nasty receptacle taped to my side. I’ll let you look at it for a dollar. I’ll let you avoid looking at it for two dollars.

I am not real enthused about the procedure, but I do look forward to tying my right shoelace again and typing like a maniac without discomfort. JHU is a good facility, except for all the MRCA and sick people everywhere. Also, my wife has promised me ice cream after the surgery.

I apologize for the interruption. We now resume Live 24-Hour Action Team coverage of the Nancy Grace nipple-slip. Trauma councilors are standing by.

Cheryl Burke did not have a nipple-slip on DWTS...

Elisabetta Canalis didn't have a nipple-slip on DWTS...

Nancy Grace had a nipple-slip on DWTS. I ask you.

I oogled coeds and drank quite a lot of beer in this sports bar last weekend after not dying. I plan to continue doing so.

Now the idea of waiting around with some unknown thing inside me gave me the sheebies, so I had it out. And of course it turned out to be a really unpleasant form of cancer which hadn’t metastasized yet. If I had waited, I might be seriously dead now.

I guess the moral here is to pay attention to your sheebies and you may have a chance to grow old alongside your wonderful wife — and to see the Colts open a season 0-3. And that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile.

Congratulations to Georgia for sticking to its guns and killing the crap out of Troy Davis despite his probable innocence. It’s good to see that some people still maintain their traditions, even if the traditions under discussion are blatant inequality of justice and blind stubbornness in the face of world-wide pleas for clemency. Go Georgia!

This is Lika Ordzhonikidze -- She was Miss Georgia 2009. Not the barbaric Georgia: she's from the one in the South Caucasus.

Why is it that self-described “Good Christians” are often the people who howl loudest for blood? It’s like that “Life of Brian” sketch where all of the women buy false beards because they want to take part in the stoning. “Jehovah! Jehovah!”

That’s it: I’m worshiping Ba’al from now on. That’s some REAL old-tyme religion!

Alec Baldwin and the Malkin of Doom

Alec Baldwin is attempting to bring the wrath of the Liberal Twitterverse* on Michelle Malkin, who has been vociferously in favor of Georgia murdering Troy Davis.

Might I have a word, Alec?

This is pointless. See, like Anne Coulter, Michelle Malkin is an odiumvore** — she feeds on hate.  By railing against her you’re just making her stronger. The best you can do with these people is ignore ‘em and eventually they dwindle into irrelevance. To an odiumvore this is a fate worse than death, which is why Anne Coulter looks so desperate these days.

Michelle Malkin's kinda cute for a mean-spirited trull, really. If you're gonna hurl racial epithets and death threats at her, at least make sure they're spelled correctly, willya?

In addition, Alec, your tirade has led your less-stable followers to unleash a veritable tsunami of poorly-spelled racial epithets and death threats against Ms. Malkin, which is unfortunate, if for no other reason than because it distracts from the real debate and makes her into a martyr. Leave the ranting to the other side. Nobody expects any better from them.

States’ Rights

Ever notice how “States’ Rights” are used almost exclusively to defend the dumbest and cruelest practices? Nobody brings up states’ rights when announcing free sandwiches for the deaf or saving drowning puppies from a vat of warm oatmeal. States’ Rights only get brought up when you want to kill somebody who doesn’t really deserve to die or when you want to enslave some people based upon their pigmentation. Think about it.

There is no actual proof that Nancy Grace eats baby kittens. Yet.

Dancing With the Annoying People

After watching Dancing With the Stars this week, I can say with complete certainty:

1. I don’t care what Chaz Bono has in his pants, now or when he was born. Why do you?

2. If I had been Cher’s child I’d almost certainly have gender issues too.

3. I hope Nancy Grace chokes on a bowl of cheese curds with gravy. She’s a harpy and makes my skin crawl. Who’s voting for her? Stop it. Stop it now.

4. If either Michelle Malkin or Anne Coulter appear on Dancing I’m not voting for ‘em, even though they both have good legs and would really rock the sequined gown. That’s how strongly I feel about this. Gender-changed Chaz Bono is far hawter than either of those dames.

————————————————————————————–

*I once vowed that if I ever used the word “Twitterverse” you should kill me. I stick by that vow today. Shoot me in the belly, so I die slow.

** I made the word “odiumvore” up. Pay me money when you use it.